Tuesday Morning Briefing

Reuters Staff

10 Min Read

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s political thought is drafted into the country’s constitution, General Motors exceeds expectations and a special report explores the largely-unregulated body broker industry.

A crew chief uses night vision goggles during a helicopter lift for U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson after meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi and Iraqi President Fuad Masum, in Baghdad, Iraq October 23, 2017. REUTERS/Alex Brandon

Special Report

When Americans leave their bodies to science, they are also donating to commerce: Cadavers and body parts, especially those of the poor, are sold in a thriving and largely unregulated market. Grisly abuses abound.

What is whole-body donation, where do donated bodies go and is it really legal to sell bodies? All the frequently asked questions on body donation are answered here.

How the body of an Arizona great-grandmother ended up as part of a U.S. Army blast test

U.S.

Top Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives are refusing to endorse a Republican move to find out who paid the research firm that commissioned a dossier alleging ties between Donald Trump’s campaign and Russia, a court document showed.

Trump dismissed the possibility of curbing a popular tax-deferred U.S. retirement savings program to help pay for his sweeping tax cuts, and voiced doubts about adding another top bracket targeting the wealthiest Americans.

Iowa withdrew a request to waive some Obamacare rules to help shore up its struggling healthcare insurance market, marking a setback in efforts by Republican-governed states to sidestep requirements of the Obama-era law.

Microsoft said it will drop a lawsuit against the U.S. government after the Department of Justice changed data request rules on alerting internet users about agencies accessing their information.

A bipartisan group of at least 10 U.S. senators plans to introduce legislation that would substantially reform aspects of the National Security Agency’s warrantless internet surveillance program, according to congressional aides.

Business

European stocks dipped and bond yields drifted higher, as data from the euro zone’s top economies bolstered the case for the European Central Bank to signal a sizeable cut this week to its stimulus measures.

Days before Apple’s much-awaited iPhone X opens for preorders, a survey by brokerage Bernstein showed that demand for the device will be substantial, but not exceptional, with about a quarter of the respondents planning to buy the phone.

United reported a higher-than-expected quarterly profit, and raised its full-year earnings per share and sales forecasts for the second time this year.

Japan’s Canon hiked its annual profit forecast for the third time on the back of expanding demand for “business-to-business” products from surveillance cameras to organic light-emitting diode screen production equipment.

A woman dressed up as "Catrina", a Mexican character also known as "The Elegant Death", takes part in a Catrinas parade in Mexico City, Mexico October 22, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Jasso

World

China’s ruling Communist Party enshrined President Xi Jinping’s political thought into its constitution, putting him in the same company as the founder of modern China, Mao Zedong, and cementing his power ahead of a second five-year term.

Handcuffed, wearing bulletproof vests and under heavily armed guard, the two women accused of murdering the half-brother of North Korea’s leader were pushed around a Malaysian airport in wheelchairs during a court visit to the crime scene. Indonesian Siti Aisyah, 25, and Doan Thi Huong, 28, a Vietnamese, are charged with murdering Kim Jong Nam by smearing his face with VX, a chemical nerve agent, at Kuala Lumpur’s budget international terminal on Feb. 13.

The top U.S. military officer sought to tamp down criticism the Pentagon had not been forthcoming about the death of four U.S. soldiers in an ambush in Niger, providing a timeline of the incident and acknowledging unanswered questions remained.

With low oil prices and austerity pushing Saudi Arabia into recession, the government may struggle to persuade international business leaders this week to pour billions of dollars of badly needed investment into the kingdom.

The timing of U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’ trip to the Philippines this week couldn’t have been better, coming just as it celebrated a victory against Islamist militants in Marawi City - with a critical dose of help from the U.S. military.

Hong Kong’s highest court granted bail to two prominent young pro-democracy activists, Joshua Wong and Nathan Law, pending an appeal over their jail terms for unlawful assembly linked to the city’s mass pro-democracy protests in 2014.